Wow, I can't believe it. I made it through this whole fic within three and a half months. I absolutely loved working on this story, and you can't imagine how pleased I am to get such consistent positive feedback on it. Don't fret, by the way - I'm adding one more chapter. It's not completely finished. There's still a little more to be told, don't you think?

By the way, for those who didn't particularly enjoy the Fredbashing here, I'd definitely go check out pocastella's story "C'mere." She's working on the fourth chapter currently, and it's promising to be a very sweet fic. Link: http(colin)(slash)(slash)www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net(slash)s(slash)2416669(slash)1(slash) (Replace the words in parentheses with their symbol equivalents, kthnxbai).

Read, review, and enjoy the second-to-last installment of "Unexpected."

Unexpected
Chapter Thirteen: Taking Control

But it's just the price I pay.

"So, she's gone, then?"

Ginny simply nodded, not in the mood to converse with anyone - not even Fred. Especially not Fred. She sucked in one more drag of her third cigarette before flicking it to the ground next to its family, then pulling another from her pack to smoke. Fred wouldn't care if she smoked. She didn't even care if he did at the moment.

"It's probably my fault she left," Fred said again, his voice flat and emotionless. "After what happened…" He lingered on it for a moment, before sitting tentatively next to his sister on the porch step. "She didn't do anything wrong, Gin," he explained softly, sounding ashamed of himself. "It was me - it was all me." He sighed at her lack of response, but she didn't know if she could give him one at all. "I love her, just like you do. But I love you a whole lot more."

Ginny snorted, turned her head slightly to give him a funny look. "Hopefully not in the same way," she told him sardonically.

Fred half-smiled and shook his head. "I don't do incest," he assured her. "What I mean is, I want you to be happy, and I want her to be happy, and after clever detective work and much thinking, I've realized that you make each other happy." Ginny smiled gently, feeling a tinge of pride for her older brother. "I should have been smart enough to not come between that. I should have been smart enough to not try to make her love me, because that's not what I want, and that's definitely not what she wants."

Ginny took a thoughtful drag of her cigarette, already half-gone, and stared off in the darkness for a long while. She was thinking of Hermione, the girl's cinnamon-tinted brown hair, her dark amber-colored eyes and the way they crinkled at the corners when she smiled just right. She was thinking of Hermione, and wondering if she was thinking of her, too.

"Ginny?"

It was the way he had said it; that unbridled concern, echoing in the syllables of her name like minor chords on a grand organ. The setting went fuzzy, the porch steps seemed to disappear beneath her and she was sobbing uncontrollably up in the air, like the smoke she was blowing out from between her lips.

Fred was up there with her, too. He was holding her around the shoulders, letting her cry into his chest, the wool of his sweater. It became damp with the tears she had refused to shed for the past few days but had wanted to oh so badly. The tears that would prove how much she needed the know-everything brunette who was god-knows-where by now, maybe already curled up in bed, or only just walking through the door to smile faintly at the confused looks on her parents' faces. She had wanted to feel like the strong one, the one who could live up to all this damage without a mark on her, but it was all there beneath her skin and coming out in front of the boy that had been hurt, too, and it seemed fitting somehow that he would be the one comforting her.

"She'll come back," he whispered in her ear, holding her tightly, rocking them back and forth. "She has to."

Ginny had exhausted her mind of wishful thinking. Yet a glimmer of hope was still ignited in her heart by those words.

'Cause I just can't look, it's killing me…

The countryside had given way to city lights and Hermione had hardly realized it. Her eyes were blurred, from the fast, reckless driving and the tears that she was too proud to cry. She was right to leave, wasn't she? It was the right thing to do, wasn't it?

She looked back at the window and saw Ginny sitting there on the porch steps, as she had found her. The smoke from her cigarette was twisting its way up and tapering off in the air. Her lips were parted, dry; she slowly darted her tongue out and wet them, then took another drag from her cigarette.

Hermione found sobs resting in her lungs, begging to be let out. She looked away to keep them down, feeling overwhelmed and unsettled. Her eyes wanted to dart to the window again, convicted criminals escaping from prison, so she closed them. There had to be some relief -

But it didn't come. Instead, there was Ginny with her family in the Burrow, the living room aglow with the lights and decorations they had put out, laughing and smiling. Hermione knew it was all fake; come midnight, Ginny wasn't smiling anymore. She was looking out the window, a sad look to her eyes and a desperation to her hands resting on the glass. Waiting for someone; waiting for her.

Hermione abandoned thinking, logic, reason, and anything else that would stop her now. She found herself standing, tripping over suitcases and gripping at the bedposts, feeling reckless and despairing and in need of assistance that only a girl with red hair and sad blue eyes could give her. She saw Stan's startled expression, heard the wizard next to her grumble in an irritated fashion about teenagers and their reckless ways, and ignored them both. She didn't even remember making her feet move. Suddenly, she had Stan's shirt in her fists and she was shaking him, her voice hysterical and high.

"Turn the bus around!" she cried. "I need to go back to the Burrow, right now! Please!" And then she found herself sobbing, and she couldn't stop. Her emotions were strung high on a line she couldn't reach, and didn't even both to. After all, a tiny part of her brain that was still mildly sane reasoned, these people did not know her - therefore, they were welcome to think that she really was insane, just a crazy teenage girl who had no idea what she wanted.

Stan gave her a worried, uncertain look, and stuttered as he talked. "I - er, miss - I -" He looked wildly around, then turned his attentions to the old, half-deaf driver in the front seat, while still trying to keep himself and the crying girl steady. "You heard the lady!" he yelled at him. "Head back to the Burrow!"

A pull of levers and a resounding pop was setting them in the direction Hermione needed to go. Her brain still gone, she threw her arms around Stan's neck and kissed his cheek, showering him with thank you's and other terms of gratitude before half-tripping, half-walking back to her designated bed, while the disgruntled wizard slept on.

…and taking control.

The bus stopped in front of the Burrow at five to midnight. Hermione hurriedly yelled her thanks to the driver and a happy-new-year-to-all as Stan struggled to get her trunk out the door, obviously still flustered from her kiss ten minutes before. It seemed like forever had happened when the trunk was finally resting in the snow and she was hopping off the bus, waving briefly as it flashed away.

Her heart was beating hard in her chest like she had run the entire way. The front door was ages away; would she make it in time? Would Ginny even be happy to see her?

Don't doubt now, she pleaded with herself and took a deep breath. Her nerves calmed slightly as she reminded herself that this was, after all, the right thing to do.

"Run, Hermione," she whispered to herself. Her legs reacted immediately, and the front door was a lot closer than she had imagined.

She threw the door open dramatically and stood in the doorway for a few moments, feeling uncertain now. Everyone was looking at her, in various states of shock and curiosity. Ginny was standing in the middle of the living room, staring at her with a hungry and surprised look on her face, and Hermione's heart nearly fell apart. What was she going to do now?

"What I came here to do," she said softly, and resolutely walked towards Ginny, whose blue eyes only widened as she came closer.

"Hermione, I thought you were going to your parents' house for New Year's Eve?" Molly Weasley asked curiously, watching the brunette approach her daughter with an unnoticeable dawning of comprehension.

Hermione, eyes fixed on Ginny, smiled slightly. "They weren't home when I arrived, so I decided to come back," she replied. It was easier to lie about it. They didn't need to know about how she had practically attacked the conductor and cried into his jacket until he turned the bus around. That was a tale for another day.

The Weasleys and Harry were happy with the explanation and went back to their festivities. Hermione chanced a flicker of a glance towards her watch: one minute left until midnight. One minute to explain. She breathed in deeply to start, brain already working feverishly to come up with the right words, when Ginny reached out and placed a finger on her lips. Hermione could feel the desperation in her fingertip, like how she had felt it in her vision, or hallucination, or whatever she ended up deciding to call it.

"Will you kiss me at midnight?" Ginny asked shyly, eyes half-lidded and lips parted.

Hermione felt a playful smirk turn up on her lips. "Maybe." Thirty seconds, she told herself, heart accelerating again.

"Maybe?" The hopeful tone to Ginny's voice was not lost on her.

Bursts of sound came from enchanted noisemakers all around them. Colors exploded from candles and house-safe firecrackers. The family cheered and hugged each other, danced around and exclaimed their resolutions at the top of their lungs.

And Hermione Granger, eyes locked on Ginny Weasley, pulled the redheaded girl close and kissed her with a passion that drowned everything else out.

When they pulled away, Hermione felt the familiar fogginess in her brain that told her she was happy - honestly and truly happy - and a blush rushing into her cheeks, and saw to her greatest relief that Ginny was smiling at her for the first time in days.

"Happy New Year," Hermione told her, and then kissed her again.

Destiny is calling me.